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General counsel outlines municipal-zoning compromise to protect farms and allow targeted swine-waste rules
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Summary
Attorney Steve Collier presented compromise language on H941 to restore farming protections, reduce certain acreage thresholds and allow municipalities limited authority to regulate swine waste in downtowns and village centers after notice and with constraints to avoid affecting farm structures.
Attorney Steve Collier, general counsel to the agriculture committee, presented H941 language on April 22 that seeks to clarify municipal zoning authority while preserving farm protections. Collier told members the drafters aimed to avoid duplicative regulation and to make rules clear and enforceable.
Key elements Collier described include lowering one acreage threshold from four contiguous acres to one acre where appropriate, restoring Schedule F protections for small producers and reverting an agreed financial threshold back to the $2,000 Schedule F amount that many farm groups prefer. Collier said those changes were intended to close gaps that previously left people who grow food for their own use or small-scale producers vulnerable to municipal regulation.
On pig waste, Collier described a narrowly drawn permissive measure that would allow municipalities to regulate swine waste in downtowns or village centers "where the waste is causing an adverse impact to the community" and only when the Agency of Agriculture cannot address the impact. The bill would require municipalities to give at least 30 days' notice to the agency and the farmer so the agency has an opportunity to work with the producer; the language would limit municipal remedies to reasonable management of waste rather than requiring removal of farm structures.
Collier also recommended adding explicit statutory language excluding non-hemp cannabis from the farming protections to avoid regulatory conflict, and he urged care in defining terms such as "backyard poultry" so towns can exercise appropriate flexibility.
Committee members asked technical questions about definitions (downtowns and village centers are defined in Title 24) and enforcement scope; Collier said the definitions are currently mapped designations and cautioned that some statutory definitions are scheduled for future repeal, which may complicate long-term drafting.
The committee agreed to continue refining language and to incorporate agreed changes into a miscellaneous bill for House consideration.
